


strategic flaws

by transatem



Category: Inazuma Eleven
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, GO Era, M/M, background endou/natsumi its polyamory babey!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 10:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14809796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transatem/pseuds/transatem
Summary: Six years of dating, and Kidou Yuuto still hasn't told Endou he loves him. He really is terrible at romance.





	strategic flaws

“Ahhh, Kidou. How is your trip? It’s not quite the same without you over here!”

“Ah, I thought I’d never be as good at it as you, but being a coach is really fun...watching the flow of the game like that...is that how you always felt gamemaking for us? Sometimes I’d try it, but I’d just end up watching you the whole match, haha…”

“When you get back, let’s go out together! You like to, right? We can catch up! Natsumi misses you too, so we can go back home after...well, if you want, my house is yours, after all!”

“Oh, you’ve got to go? Alright. I love you!”

“See you in a week. I love you!”

“Goodnight, Kidou. I love you!”

Endou Mamoru is going to kill him.

He’s always on the verge of it, but he’s really toeing the line, and with their anniversary--god, an anniversary--on the horizon...no, how many anniversaries has it been? Actually, he’s kept count. Of course he’s kept count. Six years of dating and nearly ten of romantic feelings and they’re still using surnames. Still. Of course, on Endou’s part, he just doesn’t think about it, so amazingly oblivious and so unneeding of niceties to show his love because it just comes so naturally--Yuuto, though. Every three or so months for the past three years, Yuuto gets it in him to try, just try, and every single time he gets only past the first M sound before coughing violently and acting like nothing happened.

Endou’s talent, as always, is that he does everything wonderfully and wholly without calculation. Straight out of feeling, and nothing else. A beautiful idiot in love as well as everything else. It’s rubbed off on Yuuto, too. After so many years of knowing and loving the most feeling person on the planet, he’s lifted that guard. He's let down that eternally preserved straight face. He shows his feelings much better than he used to, with age and care and lots and lots of work. He shows Endou he loves him in any way he can, of course he does, their relationship is beyond official, it’s been six years--but it’s the formalities he can’t get past. 

Six years, and Kidou Yuuto still hasn’t told Endou that he loves him.

“I’m sorry.” Yuuto told him once, laying side by side in the grass, his lip trembling-- “I just can’t...I don’t... I can’t say it.”

“Say what?” Endou said back, so very innocently, so lovingly, and Yuuto had to fight the urge to go put his goggles back on.

Kidou Yuuto is terrible at romance. Just absolutely awful. It’s really almost funny. But Endou loves him so much, and it’s so easy for him to show it, so patient, never complaining once about Yuuto’s issue with showing emotion, just happy to be with him. Yuuto feels the same way, so deeply he might burst, but he can’t--he just can’t--

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Kidou. I love you!”

The flight home is long and dark, with that itchy, unreal feeling of an airplane at night. The color of the fluorescent light is an almost alarming rose red. Underneath that red alert light, Yuuto decides that if he can have the strength to overcome the death of his parents, everything about the Kageyama situation, his own childhood home life, and several tournaments, he can--excuse his language--fucking do romance.

Everything is in the strategy. If Endou can play love the same way he plays soccer (by uplifting everyone, and being wholly himself, and without fear of anything at all,) then of course the same thing could work with Yuuto as well.

Put your goggles on to see the flow of the game, and let’s go. No, wait, off. Off is more open, even though something in him still clenches just slightly at the thought of being open on purpose. All he needs is to look at Endou’s face and body language to see the flow of the game. He feels like a schoolboy trying to woo a crush, not a grown man trying to finally, formally tell his boyfriend of six years that he loves him.

Step two is the atmosphere. For Yuuto more than anyone else. Endou--no, Mamoru--oh, god, that feels weird--will show up to any fancy restaurant with his goalkeeper gloves on. Yuuto will love him twice as more for it. He also will be too busy with his mouth full to hear absolutely anything. Restaurant is out. His house is out, because although it belongs to him and not his father now, there’s something decidedly unromantic about going five rooms deep somewhere. Endou--Mamoru’s house is out, because Natsumi is there, and no matter how much he loves her (platonically), if she heard him he would, in fact, die.

He’s got it, and he has to clear his throat five times on the phone with E...uh, M...uh, you know, before he can finally ask him to go. Of course, he immediately says yes, and enthusiastically at that.

Before every game, you must practice. Yuuto looks like an absolute idiot attempting to learn proper dance form by himself in front of the mirror, but you have to start somewhere. 

Dancing is romantic. It can’t be too hard. It’ll set the atmosphere for both of them, and while Yuuto works up the courage to say the words, the silence won’t be noticeable. He’ll dance circles around him. You must know your rival, and M...Mamoru he knows better than anyone else. So easily impressed. He’ll corner him in the throes of romance. That can’t be too hard. Romance isn’t too hard. And then, in that kind of atmosphere, completely open, when the music quiets down--

Yuuto wings his eyeliner. Now these are hissatsu tactics.

The sun dawns on the six year anniversary of Yuuto and Mamoru being together, and he is ready. Yes, he is ready as can be, and not nervous. He is not nervous. He can say words just fine. His hands aren’t shaky, and he gets ready five hours before he needs to because he likes to be punctual, obviously, and he loves to sit in the middle of his living room wearing a fancy suit and looking like it’s choking him. If he repeats that to himself long enough, he’ll believe it long enough to say three words.

The doorbell rings before Yuuto gets himself to believe it, but isn’t that how it always goes? All the words leave him when he looks at Endou’s face, still after six solid years, and with a strong ache he realizes just why he needs to say it.

“Kidou!!” Endou throws his arms around him, and Yuuto forgets how to be nervous. “I missed you, it’s been so busy lately,” he murmurs into his shoulder.

“I missed you too, E…” He pauses, and his throat chokes up again. He wasn’t allowed to forget for long, of course he wasn’t. What’s he scared of? Endou’s seen far more of him than what a few words could tell him. “Endou. Shall we go?” Endou knows, he knows--but that’s all been nonverbal. He’s never had to say it, never acknowledged it so directly. That’s what he can’t get past. Willingly giving himself up like that, so fully, so willingly, showing his heart without any sort of mask on is something he still can’t get past after all this time--but he will. He will. He’s going to.

A taxi takes them to their destination, which isn’t romantic at all. Endou absolutely doesn’t care. He strokes Yuuto’s hair across the backseat, smiling so sweetly at him, he says, “You look so good!” and Yuuto’s voice won’t come out.

Endou is the one who dances circles around him, as he always has and always will. He can’t dance, but he smiles and laughs while he apologizes for stepping on Yuuto’s feet even while the fancily-dressed people around him stare. Yuuto is the one who ends up watching him so reverently, so easily impressed by Endou's bright smile. He always surprises him, doesn't he?

“I’ve lost to you again.” Yuuto says, so softly in the silence, a brief quiet from the music.

“Eh? But you’re way better at this than I am. You’re the star of the show!” Yuuto’s grip tightens on his arm.

“Mamoru.”

Mamoru tilts his head, just slightly, still smiling. “Yuuto.” He says it like it’s no big thing at all, just replying in turn.

In that moment, so full of love but so absent of voice, Yuuto knows he can’t do it. He wishes he brought his goggles.

Mamoru insists it’s been too long since he stayed over, so they go back to Yuuto’s house. With a loud proclamation of “Ahhh, I’m sore!” Mamoru immediately flops down onto the bed.

Yuuto smiles. “I’ll get the couch ready, then.”

“Eh? For who?”

“...Me, of course.”

“But this is your bed. We’ve shared before.”

And they’re laying side by side again, looking at each other straight in the eyes this time, Yuuto’s hand underneath his face on the pillow. When you see him standing in the grass, you know that every bit of sunlight on him traveled all those millions of light years to shine on Endou Mamoru alone. Right then, faint light streams in from the hallway and bounces off of Mamoru’s face just a bit, as if it was so bashfully wondering what all that fuss was about.

“I’m sorry.” Yuuto’s voice creaks. He clenches his jaw like that can take it back.

Mamoru instantly shoots up to get a better look at him. “Why? What for?”

“It’s been six years, and I still can’t say it. I feel it so much, but I--I just--it’s so hard. To say it out loud. I want to. But I... I’m sorry.”

“What are you talking about? You’ve never done anything wrong.”

“It’s ridiculous. You deserve it, you deserve to be told that, I should, but I--”

“Kidou? Wait, ah...Yuuto?”

“...yes?”

“I love you.”

Yuuto’s free hand makes a fist around the sheets so hard they might tear. “That’s what I’m talking about,” and his voice comes out in a whisper. “It’s so easy for you.”

“No, it’s not.”

Mamoru says it to him so seriously, with such a serious look on his face, and Yuuto just blinks at him for a second. “...What?”

“It’s not easy. It’s hard--it was really hard at first. But I say it because it’s the truth.” Mamoru keeps that wide-eyed but serious look on his face, and doesn’t waver. “And no one ever said it to you before.”

No one had, but Yuuto wasn’t quite sure how he had known. Maybe it was obvious. Written all over his face. What a strange feeling, that someone knows so much about you that you never told. He'd rather not tell. “I can’t say it back.”

“I know. You don’t need to.”

“Why not?”

“I already know. You still say it.” At some point, Mamoru’s grabbed his hand, and is tracing circles on it under the covers. “It’s okay if you can’t say things with words. That’s just how you are. I still know. You say it in other ways. All the time.”

He already knows. Yuuto knew that. He already knows. Of course he does. You can’t keep any secrets from him, after all. Mamoru knows him inside and out, and always has. His best friend long before his partner.

Yuuto smiles, just a little bit. “And you used to be so oblivious.” Mamoru blinks back at him.

“What do you mean?”

Somewhere, gradually as the night continues, Mamoru ends up with his arms draped around him and his face buried into his shoulder. In contrast, Yuuto holds him tightly, head over his like Mamoru’s going to go somewhere. He’s not. His side rises and falls, and if he’s not asleep, he might as well be.

Slowly, shakily, Yuuto reaches up to pinch his cheek. Mamoru’s face scrunches, and then he blinks up at him.

“...Mmmh?” 

Yuuto’s heart races, and his throat clenches, and his body tenses, but he notes, with a bit of hope, that he isn’t wanting his goggles. He hesitates for a long, long moment.

Mamoru slowly blinks, then yawns into his hand, and for some reason--for some small miracle of otherwordly affection, for a ten year long affliction with a love for a boy who’s nothing like him at all, Yuuto exhales.

“I love you,” and it comes out like a breath he’d been holding for a long, long time, so long, so long, and it hurts, and he shakes, he trembles like he's on his sickbed, so vulnerable and hopeless and bare underneath covers and a warm pair of arms--

Mamoru smiles at him, the crown smile of many of the warmest he’s seen. “I love you too.”

Yuuto’s arms around him are so, so tight, but Mamoru doesn’t complain. He never complains. No matter what's in front of him, he never complains. “I love you,” Yuuto says again, and this time, it hurts less, it scares him less. “I love you.”

“I know.” Mamoru says gently back at him, holding him just as tight.

Yuuto repeats it so many times, tries to adopt an obvious falsely calm tone, trembling into the night no matter how hard he tries to contain it. The moonlight shines down on him from the window, like it’s always wanted to see what his eyes looked like when he told the truth.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes up to Mamoru falling off the other side of the bed. Blinking against the sun, Yuuto peers over the edge of the bed to see Mamoru smiling, laughing up at him.

“Love you!” Mamoru winks up at him.

He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again. “I love you too.” The repercussion sears through his chest like a cut from a knife, but it passes quickly. It hurts less, now. Kidou Yuuto has won against the world, against a meteorite, against himself, and he’ll win against many more. But it’s funny, isn’t it? When Mamoru’s smile is up against his lips, he thinks saying three words may have been his biggest achievement of all.


End file.
